Privately, Barack Obama strongly backs public option

[kpete]

Source: Chicago Tribune


Health care reform: Privately, Barack Obama strongly backs public option
White House discreetly labors to weave coalition on health care

By Noam N. Levey and Janet Hook Tribune Newspapers

October 4, 2009

WASHINGTON - -- Despite months of seeming ambivalence about creating a government health insurance plan, the Obama White House has launched an intensifying behind-the-scenes campaign to get divided Senate Democrats to take up some version of the idea in the weeks just ahead.

President Barack Obama has long advocated a so-called public option, while at the same time repeatedly expressing openness to other ways to offer consumers a potentially more affordable alternative to health plans sold by private insurers.

But now, senior administration officials are holding private meetings almost daily at the Capitol with senior Democratic staff to discuss ways to include a version of the public plan in the health care bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring to the Senate floor later this month, according to senior Democratic congressional aides.

Among those regularly in the meetings are Obama's top health care adviser, Nancy-Ann DeParle, aides to Reid, and Senate finance and health committee staff, both of which developed health care bills.

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-tc-nw-healthcare-obama-1003-oct04,0,1969667.story?page=1

[Luminous Animal]

1. He doesn't mean squat what he backs privately.

He needs to get off his ass and lead.

[Pirate Smile]

5. What matters is getting it through Congress. A public campaign without the numbers to pass it

through Congress is useless. Ben Nelson, Even Byah & Joe Lieberman are not the same as Bernie Sanders, Al Franken and Barbara Boxer. We have a big tent full of cats bolting all over the place.

The twisting arms time is coming up. It hasn't passed. What matters is what ends up on his desk.

[JerseygirlCT]

6. And that may take back-door, quiet pressure

allowing some of those pseudo-Dems to save face while doing the right thing. Frankly, if that gets it done, I don't care. I would think if anyone understands how it is done, it's Rahm.

[JackRiddler]

13. These are the rationalizations that have kept the status quo going for centuries.

[Lorien]

8. Truly. "Yes he might" should have been the slogan

what he does or doesn't believe in is known only to him, which is not the way to rally the troops behind your ideas.

[Cha]

18. You obviously don't know anything

about it but it doesn't stop you from barking orders on the internet.

[DebbieCDC]

2. Gee isn't that great

[thunder rising]

3. Folks the real game starts after Tuesday when the final proposal is out of committee

[dbonds]

4. I don't really care what he privately backs. All that matters is whats gets passed.

None of the mandated blood money to insurance companies or you go to jail shit. Lay off the caps on malpractice awards - just need a panel to make sure claims have merit, not caps. No to the cross state sell of insurance - we saw how that works with credit cards. Public option as an option for EVERYONE.

[western mass]

7. talk is cheap

[kestrel91316]

9. Mr. President, get off your ass and take the lead publically on this issue.

Dry powder is NO substitute for HEALTHCARE FOR ALL.

[Davis_X_Machina]

14. 25 to 35 Dem reps...

...in purple districts know that their potential survival in a mid-term election depend on distancing themselves from the White House.

The moment Obama 'gets off his ass and takes the lead publicly on this issue', half of them bolt the other way, 'defying the White House' thereby ensuring their re-election.

How does that help?

[frebrd]

10. Before I'd believe that he "strongly backs public option".......

I'd have to see some evidence to that effect.

Even if he does, he can't compete with the insurance industry lobbyists; the administration isn't going to provide funding for Senators'/Congressmen's re-election campaigns.

:(

[fascisthunter]

11. Then Make it So...

then we'll decide what we think of him.

[JackRiddler]

12. So what is this saying?

At best: Calculations on whether saying something in public is risky to his image are more important than telling the truth, or effecting a real reform. Perhaps he's saving the "political capital" for more important things, like lining up donors for 2012.

At less-than-best: Assumes liberals will be willing patsies for a bullshit excuse along the lines of, "He would if he could but he can't so he won't." At least he's not Bush!

Strong support for a public plan is there, among the people. Why doesn't he work to mobilize that, instead of shutting it down and playing the same backroom politics that always serve to maintain the status quo?

Oh, I forget, it will be different this time! He's a chess player!

No risk, no gain.

More importantly: no movement from below = nothing happens.

A rally for a public plan could get a million people to DC. But the left has decided to cede the ground to a comparatively small fraction of teabaggers.

[Duer 157099]

15. Gee... if only he were in some sort of powerful position...where he could do something...

Wouldn't that be nice?

[Captain Hilts]

16. He also privately made a deal with the pharmaceutical industry. So much for transparency!

[marshall]

17. And privately, Dick Cheney might support same sex marriage

If you read up on the Cheneys you'll see that they actually have a much more progressive PRIVATE attitude toward the issues, undoubtedly because of their daughter. But since that doesn't translate itself into public action, what difference does it make outside of their own family?

[JackRiddler]

19. Amazing that blind Obama supporters rationalize this apolitical behavior.